By Lamin Njie
Riot police descended on New Yundum on Saturday as natives toured a land area they say was being illegally taken from them.
The people of New Yundum have accused the government of orchestrating a wicked plot to seize their land after initially making them believe the land would be reserved for developmental purposes.
The town through its VDC on Thursday issued a statement drawing the attention of Gambians and ‘by extension the Government of The Gambia in particular the Ministry of Lands and the Members of the National Assembly of our utmost dismay, disappointment and frustration of the unlawful allocations of plots belonging to the community of New Yundum to government officials and in particular the Honourable members of the National Assembly of The Gambia’.
“We truly find this regrettable and utterly unease of how insensitive our own Public officials more so National Assembly Members could venture into such act of rubbing the very people they are to serve genuinely. We wonder where we will end up as a country when the apex law making body is bent on such a dubious activity without considering the plight of the very people who elected them into position,” the people of the town said in their statement.
The people of the town on Saturday toured the land in question.
“Usually we do go there for observation to see whether there is any new development. So we realised that there is development at the reserve land so what we did is we consulted the community to go there and find out,” an official of the VDC told The Fatu Network.
He added: “During that process, we met the paramilitary were there, I think two or three vehicles fully armed.
“So we went there, we observed the place and we found out there are some real estates. Of course the government also trying to encroach on parts of the other area that was initially allocated to the MPs and other public officcers.
“So that was our reason of going there. So we had this encounter with them. So guided us up to the place, we observed the place and that was it. It was smooth.”
